West Ham go down and the great guard of honour debate: Football Weekly

Summary

Football Weekly – May 25, 2026

Episode: West Ham go down and the great guard of honour debate
Host: Max Rushden
Panel: Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Wilson, Barney Ronay, Phil McNulty, Jacob Steinberg (West Ham segment)

---

Overview

This episode dissects a packed Premier League finale: West Ham’s relegation (“the London Stadium inquest”), Spurs’ great escape, emotional farewells (Pep, Bernardo Silva, Liverpool stalwarts), the controversy over in-game guards of honour, European qualification drama (including Sunderland snatching a Europa League place), and first reactions to England’s Euro 2026 squad. Throughout, the panel offers a distinctive blend of sharp analysis, wit, and typical Football Weekly camaraderie.

---

1. West Ham’s Relegation and Club Crisis

[03:14 – 16:08]

The Scene at the London Stadium

• Barney Ronay recounts his trip to West Ham’s final game: the mood more defiant and spirited than funereal, despite years of “hollowing out” and the “abysmal business” of the move to the Olympic Stadium.
• “There was still a kind of joy and defiance in the game and in the fans… despite the fact that the entity, kind of squatting on top of it, has tried to wring the life out of it.” (Barney Ronay, 04:18)

Structural Rot

• Jacob Steinberg:
  • West Ham’s relegation “has been coming for four years,” primarily due to dysfunctional leadership (David Sullivan) and scattergun recruitment.
  • The stadium move was a symbolic shift, with no real plan or vision, just an assumption that a bigger venue made them a bigger club.
  • “They didn't put any real structures in place to make that a reality… they’ve been left behind by teams like Bournemouth, Brentford, Palace, even Brighton, who have much smaller stadiums but have smart, organized people running the show, which West Ham don't have.” (08:02)

The Olympic Stadium Problem

• Expected drop in attendance for the Championship: “I can’t imagine they're going to get close to filling it with 60,000 people.” (Jacob Steinberg, 08:32)
• The stadium's atmosphere is described as “really bad” during spells of poor football.

Squad and Managerial Futures

• Star players like Bowen and Fernandez expected to leave for top sides; finances demand major sales.
• Nuno’s future is up in the air, seen as a “generic manager,” with Barney recalling his “depressing” program notes and “haunted” demeanor.
• Criticism for Karen Brady (former chief exec) and others for failed cultural projects and poor appointments.

Notable Quotes:

“He is just a random generic manager. There seems no reason why he should be managing West Ham.”
(Barney Ronay, 13:03)

“Relegation means you probably end up selling the players that you want to keep and keeping the players you don’t.”
(Jacob Steinberg, 12:24)

---

2. Spurs Survive – Rebuilding or Stagnant?

[16:08 – 24:58]

The Game and Season

• Spurs edge Everton in a nervy (but ultimately secure) finish, with panic setting in only during “12 minutes of injury time” (Jonathan Wilson, 16:26).
• Kinski, Spurs’ keeper, receives high praise: “He has made some sensational saves… his teammates clearly hold him in very high regard.” (Phil McNulty, 17:59)

Managerial Take: Roberto De Zerbi

• De Zerbi praised for positivity and restoring some energy (“I like the way he jumps around in his black T-shirt… I like the way he talks about the players.” (Barney Ronay, 20:19))
• Comparisons to previous bizarre appointments (e.g., Igor Tudor as “probably the stupidest appointment maybe ever” (Barney, 19:47))
• The panel senses cause for optimism but warn against assuming stability:
  • “No European football, there’s every chance they can finish… sixth, maybe even fifth… but it could just be another season like this one.” (Jonathan Wilson, 24:46)

---

3. Big Farewells & Guard of Honour Controversy

[27:44 – 34:53]

Manchester City: Pep & The Players

• Emotional exit for Pep Guardiola, John Stones, Bernardo Silva; their send-offs included a stand named after Pep and talk of a statue.
• The panel notes the emotion, especially Pep’s tears for Silva:
  • “The one that got me was him bawling his eyes out when Bernardo Silva came off.” (Phil McNulty, 28:23)

In-game Guards of Honour

• A heated debate erupts:
  • Wayne Rooney’s horror at mid-match guards of honour mirrored by the panel’s skepticism.
  • Wilson sees them as “contemptuous… they're not taking the game as seriously as they ought to… outrageous.” (Jonathan Wilson, 32:43 & 34:21)
  • Others suggest clubs have no obligation to rivals – “They have a responsibility to the league.” (Jonathan Wilson, 34:05)
  • Barney points to how modern fan emotionality and football’s monetization fuel “parasocial attachment and emotional constructs” around such events.

---

4. European Qualification Drama

[42:34 – 44:22]

Sunderland’s Surprise

• Sunderland qualify for the Europa League, “something I never thought would happen in my lifetime.” (Jonathan Wilson, 42:53)
• Acknowledgement of promoted side success (not since Ipswich ‘01 has a side done this well), though Wilson notes it “feels slightly as though they've snuck in.”

Brentford and Bournemouth

• Brentford (“Keith’s” side) lauded for overachieving given expectations of relegation.
• Bournemouth and Palace also qualify for Europe, suggesting a shift in the traditional order.

---

5. The End of An Era at Liverpool

[39:28 – 40:24]

• Salah and Robertson given deserved tributes as their time at Anfield ends.
• Robertson, “arguably the best left back in the Premier League over that period… a remarkable story from Queen’s Park amateur to Liverpool legend.” (Phil McNulty, 41:37)
• The Liverpool “Klopp team is now definitively over.”

---

6. Arsenal Champions & Changing Perceptions

[48:03 – 51:42]

• Arsenal finish 7 points clear, win 5 consecutive games to clinch the league.
• The narrative of them being “bottlers” or “boring” is rejected by the panel:
  • “It was odd that they were simultaneously being accused of extreme pragmatism and of being bottlers… can only be one of those things.” (Barney Ronay, 48:13)
• Arteta’s methods debated; panel notes the squad has prioritized depth over star power, which has paid off despite a sometimes “tedious watch.”

---

7. The Great Guard of Honour Debate

[27:44 – 34:53]

• Returns repeatedly to ideas of sporting integrity, fan emotionality, and media narratives.
• Panel broadly against the pageantry of in-game guards, especially while outcomes for others are at stake.

---

8. England Squad Reaction

[54:48 – 59:45]

• Initial reaction to Thomas Tuchel’s (satirical) England squad:
  • Notable omissions (Foden, Palmer, Maguire) and inclusions spark “fury.”
  • Wilson: “What I'm encouraged by is that Tuchel hasn't fallen into the trap… of just picking the famous blokes.” (Jonathan Wilson, 55:14)
  • Tactical debates: on Kane’s role, the value of “runners,” and the need to solve the “log jam” of number 10s.
  • “Kane is England's best number 10. I'd like to play him as a number 10 with Ollie Watkins ahead of him… but it won't happen.” (Barney Ronay, 58:19)

---

9. Classic Football Weekly Correspondence

[61:59 – 66:54]

• Humorous listener emails:
  • Vasectomies and car crash stories while listening to the pod.
  • Manchester train etymology and a trans-Atlantic listener possibly (but not really) “eating Wilson’s mum” by unwittingly picnicking at a family ashes site.
• Quote: "I think getting a vasectomy is a very arrogant procedure… just do it the natural way, like I do. Abstinence. It works." (Phil McNulty, 63:27)

---

10. Notable Quotes

• On West Ham’s predicament:

  “They're going to really struggle now with income… I expected to be more depressed by the occasion than I was.”
  (Barney Ronay, 04:17)

• On football’s emotional spectacle:

  “There is a lot of fawning in football… Look at this clip of someone crying… It’s this parasocial attachment to players, which… has something to do with the way the game alienates people.”
  (Barney Ronay, 29:13)

• On the England squad:

  “England’s problem is everyone trying to play in that number 10 space… one of the reasons Kane was less effective was he didn’t have people running beyond him.”
  (Jonathan Wilson, 55:49)

• On Arsenal perceptions:

  “It never quite added up… they won the league by seven points. That's pretty good.”
  (Barney Ronay, 48:10)

---

Key Timestamps

• [03:14] – West Ham post-mortem and stadium debate
• [16:26] – Spurs’ nervy survival and keeper Kinski’s impact
• [19:47] – De Zerbi’s influence on Spurs
• [27:44] – Pep, Bernardo, and the mid-game guard of honour
• [32:43] – Integrity of guards of honour debate
• [39:28] – Goodbye Liverpool legends
• [42:53] – Sunderland qualify for Europe
• [48:03] – Arsenal’s title and style analysed
• [54:48] – England squad discussions
• [61:59] – Correspondence and podcast lore

---

Tone and Style

The panel blends sharp, informed analysis with irreverent wit and group banter. They take big football moments seriously but never themselves—offering comic relief even in sombre reflection (West Ham, the “vasectomy segment”). There’s honesty about fandom, criticism of club leaderships, resistance to simplistic narratives, and a keenness to tackle awkward topics (guard of honour, City’s charges).
Fans who missed the episode will find here both detailed context and the show’s unique voice.

Transcript

[Barney Ronay]

This is the Guardian.

[Acast Announcer]

Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.

[Barry Glendenning]

What if you laughed all through your commute?

[Barney Ronay]

Or if you heard the funniest story

[Barry Glendenning]

while at the gym?

[Acast Announcer]

Well, now you can.

[Jameela Jamil]

I'm Jameela Jamil and guests on my

[Barry Glendenning]

new podcast, Wrong Turns share their most mortifying and hilarious disaster stories.

[Jameela Jamil]

I'm talking people like Mae Martin, Bob

[Barry Glendenning]

the Drag Queen, Katherine Ryan, Jake Johnson, Margaret Cho, Simon Pegg, Penn Badgley, and so many more.

[Jameela Jamil]

So listen wherever you get your podcast. Wrong Turns Where Dignity Goes to die.

[Jonathan Wilson]

Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com.

[Barry Glendenning]

Hi POD fans. Max here. Barry's here too.

[Phil McNulty]

Hello.

[Barry Glendenning]

Football Weekly is supported by Hotels.com Now, Barry, question. When you're booking a hotel, do you use hotels.com? actually, you're probably just going to say, I don't know. Producer Joel does it.

[Phil McNulty]

I don't know. Producer Joel does it.

[Barry Glendenning]

Well, I think you should give it a try for yourself. Obviously, it's a massive summer of soccer and loads of our listeners will be traveling to watch the tournament and needing to book somewhere great to stay. So it's good to know that when you're a Hotels.com member, you can save up to 20% on on hundreds of thousands of hotels. Plus you earn rewards on every stay. So each trip you take helps pay for your future trips. Just use those rewards like cash. And importantly, there are never any blackout dates.

[Phil McNulty]

What's a blackout date?

[Barry Glendenning]

Well, it's a date where you can't use travel rewards, frustratingly, usually on or around major holidays or other peak travel periods. But there are no blackout dates with hotels.com rewards.

[Phil McNulty]

Superb.

[Barry Glendenning]

Yes. So next time you're booking somewhere to stay, just book it at hotels.com hotels.com is it's all in the name. Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly. What a massive relief. Spurs just edge out West Ham to survive in the Premier League. There wasn't quite the jeopardy neutrals might have wanted. Spurs scored and held on against a pretty amiable Everton. Which means West Ham's win over Leeds didn't make any difference. We'll have the London Stadium inquest and work out how many of their players will go. Is the championship any sort of place for a sad Jedi? As for Spurs, 17th two seasons running, could De Zerbi pull out all the stops and get them into the top 15 next year? There's the big goodbyes, Pep, Bernardo, Stone, Salah and Robertson. There's the incendiary crime of in game. Guards of honor. There's Sunderland qualifying for the Europa League, with Bournemouth and Brighton in the Conference League. And then to the England squad, the fury begins about all the emissions, mainly coming from Harry Maguire's family. There's some interesting correspondence on the small chance of a listener getting caught up in the ashes of a panelist's parent. Your questions. And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly. On the panel today, Jonathan Wilson. Welcome.

[Jonathan Wilson]

Morning. How you doing?

[Barry Glendenning]

I'm very well, thank you. Hello, Barney. Ronnie.

[Barney Ronay]

Hi, everyone.

[Barry Glendenning]

Barry Glendenning. Good morning.

[Phil McNulty]

Howdy.

[Barry Glendenning]

And joining us for the West Ham inquest, Jacob Steinberg. Hello, Jacob.

[Jacob Steinberg]

Hello.

[Barry Glendenning]

So then, let's do the relegation picture. West Ham go down on 39 points. Spurs getting 41 after beating Everton 1 nil. West Ham beat Leeds 3 nil. I didn't watch it live. I woke up. I was woken up at 4am Willie Rushton to 67 WhatsApp messages which made me think, oh, no, spurs are definitely relegated. I don't get that many WhatsApp messages, but fortunately, it's okay for me. West ham relegated after 14 years in the Premier League. First time in 15 years a team has gone down with 39 points. Barney, you were there at the London Stadium. Did you have a nice time?

[Barney Ronay]

Yeah, I mean, I did, actually. It was a occasion where there were lots of things going on at the same time. It was actually a good game and West Ham played well against a team that had just stop playing. But it was. I thought that the reaction of the stadium was very interesting because the whole story of West Ham's relegation is essentially the hollowing out of the club and the abysmal business of moving to the. To the Olympic Stadium under a really strange deal that seems to have really benefited no one at all. But there was still a kind of joy and defiance in the game and in the fans and essentially 60,000 people chanting things that you can't repeat on this program towards the owner of the club. But in the panorama of the entire occasion, it was very interesting and I thought that West Ham's. I felt there was still some life in the club, paradoxically, despite the fact that the entity, kind of squatting on top of it, has tried to wring the life out of it. They're going to really struggle now with income, with what kind of team it's going to look like in the championship, because players will have to leave, obviously. But I expected to be more depressed by the occasion than I was. And she kind of quite enjoyed it and thought Football is quite good and this club will survive despite whatever has been done to it.

[Barry Glendenning]

Jacob Barney mentioned the hollowing out of the club there, and I suppose this is where this, this. We don't need to spend too much talking about the match itself. They played okay, they won. But it feels like this has been coming.

[Jacob Steinberg]

Yeah, I mean, in a contained sense, it's been coming for four years. There'll be a lot of people who say, be careful what you wish for. You shouldn't have got rid of David Moyes. But despite the trophy win in 2023, if we're being honest, the league form had really started to tail off probably around January 2022. Now, maybe that's partly because he ran out of steam when it comes to dealing with an owner like David Sullivan, but the league form had tailed off under him. He'd lost a bit of momentum. And it's not so much that they got rid of Moyes when they did, it's that subsequent to that, you were placing your trust in Sullivan to get the next decision right. And if they had done that, then maybe it would have been okay. But it's obviously just a series of poor managerial appointments. First Lobetaghi, who barely lost any time at all. Then Potter, less than a year until he's gone. And finally Nuno, who I think has got some pretty good PR for the job that he's done. It's, you know, 33 games that, that he's had to sort it out. And he can point out that it's. It's been a long, long time since anybody's gone down with, with 39 points. But that was the league this season. It's been tougher than it ever was before. And he made a lot of avoidable errors that, had he not made those mistakes, like the. The weird selections against Leeds and Brentford in October, negative substitutions when they were leading games that end up proving very costly. They might have ended up staying up. So it's just a long series of. Of areas when it comes to the managerial appointments. But you can also go to Tim Styten as the. As the technical director appointment in 2023 as well. Fell out with two managers. Wasted a lot of money. All these individuals, they'll have fingers pointed at them. But it all ultimately comes back to David Sullivan and the way he's run the club for the 16 years that he's been in charge. He's the ultimate person who calls all the shots, the. Still the largest shareholder that might be about to change. It's all really down to him and the outdated way that he runs the club, the lack of real infrastructure that's in place, the dysfunction, the scattergun recruitment, the way that managers are kind of just not fully trusted. And ultimately it's 10 years since they. Since they went to the. To the London Stadium. And it feels all the time they've been there, despite the brief spurt of success they handled Moyes, that this has been coming. They went to this stadium and kind of just. It feels like they thought, we're in a big stadium now, we're a big club. But they didn't have any real plan to make that actually a reality. They had no vision and they didn't put any real structures in place to make that a reality. And ultimately it says it all, that they've been left behind by teams like Bournemouth, Brentford, palace, even Brighton, who have much smaller stadiums but have smart, organized people running the show, which West Ham don't have. It comes back to Sullivan and it comes back to Karen Brady as well, who slunk out the door last month and wasn't there to face the music yesterday.

[Barry Glendenning]

Yeah, Jacob, I mean, that stadium, it always appears bad, but occasionally you hear it's okay. Like, what will that be like in the championship, do you think?

[Jacob Steinberg]

I mean, it can be okay. I mean, there's been an argument of, well, it was fine when they were. They were beating Sevilla in the last 16 of the Europa Police. Of course it is. This is not a normal thing that happens for West Ham fans. They're going to be up for that kind of, kind of game. But when it comes to the Spock Standard Saturday, 3 o' clock and they're playing badly and there's kind of a lot of disengaged people there, the atmosphere just kind of sucks away and it's really bad. What is it going to be like next season? I can't imagine that they're going to get close to filling it with 60,000 people. I mean, I think there's a lot of people there who are quite casual day trippers who turn up because it's quite easy to watch Premier League football and it's not difficult to get tickets there. There's been the issues of away fans being able to get into home sections in a lot of the bigger games. So next season, I really don't see that you're going to get close to the kind of crowds that you anticipate in the Premier League. There have even been the points this season where the actual real attendance has dipped below 40,000. So that sense of Apathy, I think, is growing. There's anger, there's apathy, there's a mixture of both. And obviously just comes back to what Barney was saying about this deal that doesn't really make sense for anybody. The rent that they pay under the terms of this agreement means they're going to pay half the rent that they are now. So that's going to cost the London taxpayer around two and a half million, I think. So, yeah. It's just been a disaster for all concerned. It's just the thing is it's happened before. It's happened to West Ham before. They've gone down. They've been. They were relegated in 2011, they were relegated in 2003. They came back. But this feels different because they moved into the stadium and they just got rid of the history, the identity and for nothing, basically.

[Barry Glendenning]

It does feel weird, isn't it, that you know, if you're in Brent County Council, you suddenly your council tax goes up because, you know, or any. Or Wandsworth or whatever. Just because this weird deal that Boris Johnson did. Who of this squad stay in the Premier League? Wilson, do you reckon as Bowen go

[Jonathan Wilson]

straight to Liverpool and Bowen definitely would. Is. Is far too good for the championship. I mean, Cassianos is quite good, isn't he? I mean he. So you would assume he would find another club. I don't think Jacob's probably better equipped to answer that than me because I've been fortunate enough not to have to watch West Ham much recently.

[Barry Glendenning]

You can. You can delegate the question if you like. Wilson. They're very open to that.

[Phil McNulty]

It is slightly ironic that the first time in what seems like 100 years West Ham sign a decent striker is the season they get relegated. But yeah, Cassianos has been good.

[Barry Glendenning]

Jacob, who's going to be left after the summer?

[Jacob Steinberg]

Yeah, well, they signed. They signed two strikers, of course, in. In January, so one of them hasn't scored a goal. Pablo, who has a bit of promise, but an interesting fee was paid for someone with sort of half a season in the Portuguese top flight behind him. Castellanos has been okay. He misses a lot of big chances. I'm not sure if that's going to get him into the Argentina squad for the World Cup. Bowen, he said yesterday that he. His vision is to get the club back into the Premier League. But the losses that they posted in the last financial year, 104 million would suggest that there's just no real option for them to keep someone like that. They need to bring in over 100 million in sales this summer and obviously they've got ways to do that. With Fernandez, who they got for 38 million, you'd imagine that they'll make a profit on him. I think he would probably improve any big sides midfield next season. United are really interested in him. Arsenal as well and psg. I think Somerville inevitably goes to youth. Maybe he's shown enough promise. He's pretty ropey defensively at times, but he's young and he's shown some promise. De Sassi goes back to. Back to Chelsea after his loan and there'll be some, some players like Wan Bissaka to Tebow, they have to get out because they're not the right attitude for the club. Ultimately, relegation means you probably end up selling the players that you want to keep and keeping the players you don't. Will there be a buyer for Max Kilman, for example? It's going to be a grim summer because the financial situation is really sums up the way that Sullivan's run the club.

[Barry Glendenning]

And Barney, you know, is, as I said in the intro, is the championship a place for a dying Jedi? I mean, for. Nuno has had times of becoming kind of ready bread advert sort of happy Nuno. But now we're back to what we already originally always saw him as.

[Barney Ronay]

Yeah, he definitely didn't seem very happy yesterday, particularly not when my colleague Jacob Steinber was unfairly badgering him in his press conference, asking him, well, what's going to happen? Are you going to still be here? And he kept saying, that's, you know, why are you asking that? Which is a very obvious question. And there seems to be a very obvious answer given that he wouldn't actually answer the question. I mean, he is just a random generic manager. There seems no reason why he should be managing West Ham. He actually, you know, he's been involved with quite a lot of the clubs down at the bottom of the league there. The kiss of death. I mean, I don't really understand. He's not the person to fill that sort of moribund project with life and love. There was an astonishing picture of him in the, in the program on, on, you know, the final day of the season where he just looked. It's the most haunted picture I've ever seen of any. Presumably it was the best one they could get. Like, we're gonna have to go with this one where he's essentially one more,

[Barry Glendenning]

just one more Nuno now just, just jump and smile.

[Barney Ronay]

But no, it was very sad and his program notes were so depressing as well. He said there are many things you could say about our last few games, and none of them are good. And that was his war cry. Pin it to the, Pin it to dressing room wall. He also, he addressed the fans and said, I know we have no right to ask anything of you. It was like a kind of Dickensian waif writing to a maiden aunt, asking for, you know, keep me out of debtors prison. I mean, I've done very well out of the Premier League. I, I agree with Jacob. I don't think he's done a particularly good job at West Ham there. Always the right man for the job. Can I emphasize that Karen Brady seems to have got away with one here. I mean, when, when she left, there were lots of hagiographies about a wonderful football administrator. She had lots of friends in the media, obviously in a column in the sun, but she appointed Graham Potter and made great play of appointing Graham Potter and talking about how we found exactly the right cultural fit for this long term project. He reflects the people of the East End will take to him this place of innovation and all this kind of stuff, and then sacked him a few months later. And really the people of the East End did not take to Graham Potter. I think she kind of got away with one. I think Jacob's right. Their entire superstructure was just overtaken by other clubs who almost unfairly appointed competent modern people to these roles. And you were just left unable to compete on that front. It almost seems like cheating.

[Jonathan Wilson]

Graham Potter. I was in Stockholm when Sweden qualified for the World cup and he is so happy not to be West Ham manager. The glee, the joy radiating off him. I was in the hotel, I got on the way to the game, got in the lift and there was half a dozen really pissed Sweden fans in the lift. And they start talking to me, they realize I'm English and they went, do you know Graham Potter? And I was like, well, I've been in a couple of press conferences with him and they're like, oh, you've spoken to him? No, I've been in the room when he's spoken. And that was enough to sort of cast me in this elevated light. He's absolutely in the right place now. I've never seen a happier manager.

[Barry Glendenning]

Okay, well, that's enough for West Ham. So Jacob, good luck in the championship. We'll speak to you soon at the World cup, no doubt. Thank you, Jacob. Thank you, Jacob Steinberg there. So on to Spurs Barca. Jim says, our Everton, the biggest killjoys in football, they had one job, so we didn't really have the Jeopardy. Wilson, you were there at the Tottenham hotel, Spurs stadium. Did it feel nervy at any point?

[Jonathan Wilson]

Oddly, yes, but totally unjustifiably so. They were fine until it went to injury time and there was nine minutes of injury time which became about 12 in the end and they got panicky then. But there's absolutely no need. I mean, Everton were hopeless. There was, you know, just. Tottenham weren't particularly. They were fine and I sort of seen them quite a bit this season and the pattern is familiar. They're quite good for the first hour and then they run out of steam and I think partly because of injury problems, they. They haven't had people to bring off a bench, particularly in forward areas. And that. That is starting to be. Obviously Madison's back. Colin, while he was on the bench yesterday. They had one other forward on the bench yesterday, Solanke on there. Solanke was on the bench as well. That's right, yeah. So they had slightly more options yesterday, but basically once they scored, the thought of that Everton side scoring twice was so implausible. I mean, I'm not sure Everton scored twice in the whole of next season on that kind of showing, but then suddenly it gets to injury time and spurs are panicking. It was three headers that went not that far wider over. There's obviously the brilliant say from Kinski makes him Tyrick George and if that had gone in, there'd still have been three or four minutes to cling on and maybe the panic would have got to them. But that was entirely to do with Tottenham's panic rather than Everton being any good at all.

[Barry Glendenning]

Kinski, I mean we've mentioned it already, Barry, but actually he's been real really key to keeping Tottenham in the Premier League actually. And after what happened to that Letty like kudos to him. I wonder if he's good enough to be there number one. But he's certainly played very well in the last couple of months.

[Phil McNulty]

I think on the evidence of what he's shown since Deserabi came in, he's definitely good enough to be their number one to come back from what happened to Matt Atletti shows incredible character. He has made some sensational saves. I probably don't know enough about goalkeeping to know whether he's good enough at playing the ball out, blah, blah, blah. But his teammates clearly hold him in very high regard. Again this game yesterday as Barca James, Everton, you had one job and of course they couldn't do it. I took my Premier League predictions from the start of the season I was watch having a look at them this morning to see how wrong they are. They're very wrong indeed and I suppose the wrongest I was was having everton finish in 19th and yet I feel if the season had gone on and maybe another three weeks they would have finished 19th. They've really gone out. At one stage it looked like they might. Not too long ago people were talking about them potentially qualifying for the Champions League and their season has just ended with a total whimper. I don't think the fans are happy with David Moyes or the style of football they play. So yeah, they had one job yesterday and obviously they blew it.

[Barry Glendenning]

Yeah, I suppose they did do that comeback against Man City which was sort of slightly out of character from their last few games. Back to Spurs. Barney Deserby has worked, right? He's, he came in, they're paying him a lot of money and he has, he's come in with positivity which I mean after I got Tudor, it was hard to take it down from for Tudor in a positive sense. But he's done what he was, you know, boy to do.

[Barney Ronay]

Yeah, I noticed nobody really talks about Eagle Tudor's role in, in this. Nobody's, nobody's paid tribute to the work of Eagle Tudor in. I mean that was insane. Probably the stupidest appointment maybe ever.

[Phil McNulty]

Celtic would like a word.

[Barney Ronay]

Well, yeah, but the issue was that it thought it was intelligent. It was based on this guy has this record and he's done. But it didn't really fit. It was a really bad application of the idea of someone having a track, alleged track record that just didn't actually fit the situation at all. I mean nobody has a track record that reflects accurately the job of managing Spurs. This is like a unicorn club, isn't it? It's a very strange place with lots of odd things that you have to negotiate. But maybe it's like when you pull back, maybe he created such a feeling of despair and low hanging fruit that maybe he perversely it was, it was so easy to improve that maybe it was like pulling back a, you know, an elastic band until it almost snaps and, and then it can only go forward. So maybe we need to pay tribute to Eagle Tudor but you'd be seriously worried involved in appointing him. Are still there and will now. But I, I think Deserbi is a really good manager and something about his energy seems to fit the stadium and fit the fans. I like looking at him, I like watching him. I like the way he jumps around in his black T shirt. I like the Fact, he looks a bit like a caterpillar. I like his little facial hair. I like the way that he talks about the players. He seems to understand how to motivate them. They would obviously have a clear out. They'll, I'm assuming, get rid of their captain. Now. There's a strange vibe inside the squad. It was nice to see Christian Romero there celebrating wildly with his teammates, which was good. I always knew you could do it, lads. I have a feeling they could just finish sixth next year because the club has income, has, does have a base of a good squad now has a good manager. And this will seem like a strange fever dream. Maybe it's even a good season for spurs, because what is a good season, it's lots of content, isn't it an energy. And spurs have been one of the stories of the season. Maybe this has been here for them in a weird way.

[Barry Glendenning]

I've been on Google images of caterpillars. I. I can't really see any that look that much like Roberto de Zerbi. I mean, you're not.

[Barney Ronay]

I'm thinking like a cartoon caterpillar. Like if you have a naughty caterpillar who's.

[Jonathan Wilson]

Yeah.

[Barney Ronay]

You know.

[Barry Glendenning]

But he needs some antennae, doesn't he? Do they have antennae?

[Barney Ronay]

His hair is a little bit like antennae. He has like this sticky up. He has the hair of like a. A 2003 boy band in a documentary where they're like going, I've been through hell. But you still have the same haircut and beard. Yeah.

[Jonathan Wilson]

So just on Romero, we should say it was a very good day for him because Belgrano scored twice in the last four minutes to beat him with a plate and, well, maybe that's what

[Barney Ronay]

he was celebrating when he was jumping around.

[Jonathan Wilson]

Maybe it was later on. It was later in the evening that it happened.

[Barry Glendenning]

So Aidan does say, as a Spurs fan, I feel absurdly optimistic about next season under Zerby. Will I never learn? I'd be interesting to see Wilson, what they do with the squad and the players. And, and as, as Barney mentioned, you know, Vina Venkateshem and Johan Langer, we talked about West Ham's, you know, the people who run the football club there. Like they've made some odd decisions this season.

[Jonathan Wilson]

Oh, they have. I mean, I, I think although he'd gone by then, Tudor was definitely Pratici's man. That Paris. She had looked at him. I mean, again, why would you. Why would you appoint a man on the say so of somebody who left the club several weeks earlier? But, yeah, zerby said there's 10, 11, 12 players good enough to stay, which sounds like quite a big clear out. It might be, to be fair, there's probably eight or nine players he hasn't even met yet because he's just been getting treatment. I think he's envisaging quite a big overhaul. But the oddity this was something that Jackpot Book pointed out was that it felt exactly the same as the Brighton game final day last season when admittedly they lost 4 1, but they finished 17th. There was huge celebrations, players on the pitch taking the acclaim of the south stand. Last season there was four days after they won the Europa League and there was a sense, oh, it'll all be fine next season. And this time was a similar thing of, oh, it'll all be fine next season. Now, of course, the difference is de Zerbi is there, he's got an achievement under his belt. He'll have some idea of what he wants to do with the squad. Well, change it. I mean, we've seen that and he's now got the summer to sort that out. Whereas Thomas Frank was coming in as being the bloke succeeding the bloke who'd actually achieved something. Yovoskova won the Europa League. So that dynamic maybe is slightly different, but I don't think anybody should be sort of suckered into thinking this is all suddenly fine. It should be fine. And Barney's right. No European football, there's every chance they can finish, say sixth, maybe, maybe even fifth. You know, it's. They have a potential to do that. They've got good young players there, people like Archie Gray and Bergval Madison. If he's fit, they are good enough to have a decent run. No European football will help, but equally, it could just be another season like this one. There's no. Nothing certain about it.

[Barry Glendenning]

No something good about singing Freed from desire. Having got 41 points and coming 17th, you know, if it's, you know, if it's a banger, you'll always dance and sync to it. Anyway, that'll do for part one. Part two. We'll begin with the emotional goodbyes.

[Acast Announcer]

Acast powers the world's best podcasts.

[Jonathan Wilson]

Here's a show that we recommend.

[Acast Announcer]

If you've ever dreamed of quitting your job to take your side, hustle full time. Listen up. This is Nikayla Matthews, aome host of side Hustle Pro, a podcast that helps you build and grow from passion project to profitable business. Every week you'll hear from guests just like you who wanted to start a business on the side. If you can't run a side hustle, you can't run a business. They share real tips and so I started connecting with all these people on LinkedIn and I saw target supplier diversity was having office hours. Real advice. Procrastination is the easiest form of resistance and the actual strategies they use to turn their side hustle into their main hustle. Getting back in touch with your tangible cash and sitting down and learning to to give your money a job like it changes something. Check outside Hustle Pro every week on your favorite podcast app and YouTube.

[Jonathan Wilson]

Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere.

[Jameela Jamil]

Acast.com Most people don't realize how much of their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the Internet, then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers. It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where Aura comes in. Aura actively removes your data from broker sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark web. But Aura goes beyond data protection. With one app you get a vpn, antivirus, password manager, spam call protection, dark web monitor monitoring and even up to $5 million in identity theft insurance. All backed by 24, 7 US based fraud support. Other companies might sell just credit monitoring or even just a vpn. Aura gives you all of it together at the same price competitors charge for just one service. Start your free trial [e-mail] safety protect yourself [e-mail] safety foreign.

[Barry Glendenning]

Part two of the Guardian Football Weekly. So just to confirm everything, Arsenal won the league into the Champions League, City, United, Aston Villa and Liverpool, Bournemouth and Sunderland going to the Europa League. Palace will do if they win the Conference League on Wednesday and Brighton are in the Conference League. Let's do the goodbyes. So City 1 Villa 2 this was all about the farewells of Pep, John Stones and Bernardo Silva. They named a stand after Pepper. Statues coming Barry. Actually of all the emotional goodbyes, it was Pep's dad wiping a tear away. That got me slightly going of, you know, the number of, you know, applauses and guards of honor and, and people crying. That was the thing that, that hit me a little bit.

[Phil McNulty]

Yeah, it was nice for Pep. I, I think the one that got me was him quite visibly bawling his eyes out when Bernardo Silva came off. It was a nice occasion at the Etihad. I think the result was a complete, you know, sideshow. Didn't really matter. I was shocked. Villa won, to be honest. I would have bet my life on City winning that game, which shows how much I know about anything. But it was an emotional afternoon for. For everyone at the Etihads. And Barony has stuff to say about Guards of Honor. Mid game. Guards of Honor, I didn't see a big. Didn't think it was a big deal, really. The game was a complete irrelevance like the one at Sellers park, basically, wasn't it?

[Barry Glendenning]

Yeah. We can go to the Gods of Honor if we want, Barney.

[Barney Ronay]

Well, I mean, the best thing about the Guards of Honor was the. The discussion about the Guards of Honor. I mean, I liked Wayne Rooney's absolute look of horror, as though someone had, like, shot a budgerigar on the pitch or, you know, eviscerated a dog. He looked absolutely appalled. And that made me think that I should probably be appalled by it as well, because it is. I mean, come on. I mean, there is a lot of fawning in football. It's very Internet. It's very kind of. Look at this clip of someone crying. It's very. It's this parasocial attachment to players, which I think really has something to do with the way the game alienates people. There's this huge. Well of. I think it's a really interesting subject. There's this huge well of emotion. People love football, and it is. At the same time, it's constantly telling you that you're just a consumer or you're not attached to it. I mean, the whole story of West Ham, you know, the story of spurs, is of taking this addiction to football and to a club and absolutely monetizing it to within an inch of its life. And so people want. There's all this emotion that wants to attach to things and the habit of, you know, pictures of players that sort of, say, little clips. It reminds me of tennis. Tennis does this a lot as well. You create this entire emotional construct around players and around optics, around what they look like and someone brushing away a tear. And it's a really strange phenomenon, and it's a kind of imagined relationship in many ways that has nothing to do with what these people are actually like or what. You don't know them.

[Barry Glendenning]

That's how listeners feel about us, Barney. Of course, people are thinking, I'm waiting on your every word, Barney. And thinking, if he ever retired, they would weep tears.

[Barney Ronay]

Yeah, like the the degree of sort of hatred, disdain and. And kind of, you know, imagined engagement is kind of similar. You're right. It's a very minor version of that. But I don't know. Having a guard of honor in the game, it is ridiculous. Like, what's that for? What are the vestibular players doing? Gods of honor. Didn't they have them in cricket as well? And it would often be maybe on the last day of a game when it's petering out and there's a genuine sort of legend in the room. I'm pleased for. I really like Bernardo Silva. He's one of my favorite footballers and he does really, really speak to the kind of late. Pep. Pep loves him. He really. He's the most intelligent footballer. He really is, I think, a really underrated player. My favorite memory of him, and probably of Pep as well, is being in a press conference. And it was quite a big game and something had happened and we had to talk about the VAR decision and. And there was a point where Pep just went off into this rant for about 10 minutes about the three different images that Bernardo Silva has in his head when he's playing out of possession, how he has three different press options. And while he's looking at what to do, Pep can also see those in his head. He can see the images that Bernardo Silva's having. And he says every time Bernardo chooses the right one. And he gave a really specific example and no one was listening. The entire press corps are typing up. There are. Pep was going on about something, but he'd gone into this reverie about pressing position choices being made in real time. And you saw how much he loves football, how much he loves Bernardo and their weird networked kind of brains on this. It makes me think that Bernardo probably can be a really good coach at some point because he has made an astonishing career out of a really quite. He's not a very physical person. It's all in the brain. And, yeah, I think he's a. He's a really, really great player.

[Barry Glendenning]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Wilson]

On. On the Gods of Honor, I'm. I'm completely on the. In the Rooney camp here, so any league is. It's a feature of any league. We come to the end of a season, the incentives for different teams will be different, and the league only functions. It only has integrity if everybody is still at least making some sort of effort to win the game or to get the result that they need out of the game. Bournemouth, thanks to ludicrous regulations, but Bournemouth needed City to win that game, to have a chance of getting into the Champions League if City and Villa are messing about having guards of honour in the middle of the game. And when this happened with John Terry in the Chelsea Sunderland game years ago, I felt exactly the same. By definition, they're not taking the game as serious as they ought to. And I think it's really contemptuous of City and to a lesser extent Villa, of teams below them in the table who require them to play that game.

[Phil McNulty]

Seriously, I would argue that City and Villa have no responsibility to try and get Bournemouth into the Champions League. If Borman needs want to get into the Champions League, that's within their own purview. Yeah, it shouldn't be on Villa or City. It's not. They have no, no obligation to Bournemouth whatsoever.

[Jonathan Wilson]

No, they do. They have a responsibility to the League.

[Barney Ronay]

They do have an obligation. They have an obligation to play a robust game of football. You can't just do an Austria West Germany and decide to stop playing like the whole thing collapses as soon as nobody really cares about what's going on on the pitch.

[Jonathan Wilson]

You know, one of the problems when leagues began 150 years ago was getting towards the end of the season, teams had nothing to play for, just literally wouldn't turn up for games. So you look at, look at tables from, happily, our league seems to have got away with this, but look at, look at tables from the late 19th century and often you have the top three or four teams will have played, you know, 30 games and then teams are 27, 24, 22, because they couldn't be bothered. This is essentially the same thing and it's, it's outrageous. You've, you know, you've got to play properly or the league falls apart.

[Barry Glendenning]

No, the day goes by when I, I don't look at league tables from the late 19th century. Whilst it's nice to know that we, we share that. Just moving away from guards of honor. Barney, you wrote a piece about Pep and I'd say I was sort of pleasantly surprised that Kelly Case and Alan Shearer at least brought up the charges because it's sort of deafening, the silence in all the tributes to Pep, I think, because people just don't feel comfortable talk, talking about it. And you know, we've talked about this with Spygate. Everyone can talk about a man hiding behind a tree, but people find it hard to talk about the possibility because I thought the point that you made that a lot of these titles and these trophies have been very marginal. You know, one goal or one point. And so we do have to wait until the end of these charges.

[Barney Ronay]

Yeah, I mean, it is boring. I know it's boring. No one is interested in people not filing their accounts or not cooperating with investigation. That sounds really minor. Like everybody's been late with their submission to HMRC or whatever and had to have a phone call where you wait for ages and then you explain yourself to someone eventually after 40 minutes. But they are really material. Essentially these are accusations of financial fraud which obviously Citi deny. And you're right, I think people sort of think they're historic as well and they don't relate to things that have happened during Pep Guardiola's time, but they do. And yes, it's really boring. But most of the teams, not all of them, were sticking to these rules, whether you like them or not. And they success in football is totally attached to expenditure. It just is now. And the fact is, City do have a massive advantage in that there is no financial jeopardy. It doesn't really matter. If you spend 100 million on a player, it doesn't work out. Nobody's counting the cost. There's no opportunity cost in that. That's a huge advantage. Now this sounds like sour grapes. It's not. Two things can be true at the same time. I have no skin in the game. Pep Guardiol is an incredible manager. He's a genius and he's created beautiful teams that I have loved watching. It's frustrating that these two things have to exist. It's not to say that he wouldn't have done exactly this without whatever, even if the charges are proven, which they haven't been, that this wouldn't have happened anyway. And he's essentially operating under a scheme of patronage, which is really interesting. You know, it's kind of like being a painter in a Renaissance city where you're just. Just make your patterns, do your glorious thing and we will. And that's been really beautiful. And I am interested to see what the statue looks like. Which Pep will it be? Will he be crouching down? Will it be clawing at his own skull? Will he be bursting his trousers? Will he be sitting glassy eyed in a press conference saying, I'm so, so happy, and giving death stares to Jamie Jackson, But I love all of these incarnations. I've really enjoyed watching it. But the fact is, it also really great to have this not mentioned. I liked Alan Shearer's response where he just said, yes, if these are proven, there will have to be an asterisk against this because he understands. I mean, he's played for the first team to really do this before ffp, his own Premier League title was based on massively gaming the league, this time by a steel magnate in his hometown. So yeah, we have to talk about it. Unfortunately, I think it makes it more fascinating, not less in its own weird way. Way.

[Barry Glendenning]

Yeah. And we did actually, Marcus Bella on the radio with me and Barry yesterday brought up a good point about Pep's influence that in grassroots and I've noticed this playing vets league, you know, people play out from the back now and they. And they didn't 10 years ago.

[Barney Ronay]

Don't you think that's a bit overstated? Like I, I hear this all the time. Yeah. I mean we do live in an era where we live in an age, said Arson Wenger, where everything is totally networked. People do just copy what they see. It was not possible to have this kind of influence previously. Now you just. Everyone sees everything. And I've this as well. In kids football, people going like you shout at people for hoofing it up the pitch, which is a complete 180 from the previous thing of showing people not hoofing up the pitch.

[Barry Glendenning]

I love it when people hoof up the pitch. I love it so much. Just, yeah, get rid, get rid.

[Barney Ronay]

You know, I, I think the cultural influence has been more normalizing, political interference and you know, bending of rules and a sense of corruption that you just argue about on the Internet. That seems more of a cultural influence than a little bit of passing around at the back.

[Barry Glendenning]

Yeah, yeah, potentially. I mean they both have their place. But you're right, we don't discuss those, you know, on Princess park of a Sunday afternoon. That is true. While we're on goodbyes, Wilson, what did you make of most Salah and Andy Robertson and the. Those at Anfield?

[Jonathan Wilson]

Yeah, I mean it is the end of an era that, that Liverpool team, the club team that, that won the league, that won the Champions League, it is now definitively over. And that's been a process that's probably gone for what, two, three years. It began under Klopp that he made a series of change and obviously Klopp goes, yes, Salah has clearly been one of the greatest players in the Premier League. It's probably the right time for him to go because he has been nowhere near that level this season. And Robertson as well, that, you know, is clearly he's starting to slow down. He's not able to play as regularly, but he has been a brilliant signing. Was it 8 million he cost from 8 million?

[Barry Glendenning]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Wilson]

He's arguably Been there the best left back in the Premier League over that, that period. So yeah, two great players for Liverpool and at least they had the dignity to, to wait till the end of the game to, to stop and take them. I mean, I know they got substituted and got the applause but that's how you do it. You don't need everybody to stop and give you a God of honor.

[Barry Glendenning]

Well, on Brentford Barry, because Watara missed a header right at the end which would have moved them up to seventh. You know, Keith and has done a brilliant job. You could just see, you know, the, the, his head in his hands. He had such a brilliant season.

[Phil McNulty]

His lovely hair in his hands. Yeah, yeah, he's had a remarkable season. Lots and lots of people predicted Brenford would go down at the start of the season because they lost several key players, they lost their manager, they took a punt on Keith and you know, Brenford's owner famously made his money out of gambling and that was a gamble that paid off massively. He's done really well. Delighted for him obviously because he's Irish and it is a bit of a shame that he didn't make it into Europe but I, I think we, we very much glossed over Sunderland getting into the Europa League. I think that is an unbelievable achievement by Regis Labrie. And if I could just go back to Andy Robertson. His story I think is, is remarkable. I mean there was the tweet, I think it was in 2012 when he was an amateur footballer with Queen's park and he said being broke at this age is rubbish. Need, hashtag, needed job. I think he was working in M S and like, you know, he had a proper job while playing for Queen. Then he went to Hull. Liverpool signed him. He seemed to vanish off the face of the earth for about three months. But it was clear that Jurgen Klopp was. Had a team of experts turning him into the Andy Robertson we came to know and love. He seems like just such a lovely, lovely bloke. I'd imagine he'll be a big loss to that dressing room. One of those guys is clearly just a good lad to have around the place. And the fact that he's really good at football is also helpful of course. But yeah, back to your original question. Brilliant maiden season for Keith Andrews. Be interesting to see how, how he goes from here. Don't leave Brentford, Keith. Stay there.

[Barry Glendenning]

Yes, forever. I think you're right. Yes. And I mean rumors that Annie Robinson's agreed to go to Tottenham so, you know, who knows he'll be Good to have around the place. But, you know, I'd have another think, Andy, given what's happened. Let's not gloss over suddenly going to the Europa League then Wilson. They beat Chelsea 2 1. It is, as Barry said, a phenomenal achievement.

[Jonathan Wilson]

Achievement, Yeah. I mean, it's just one of those things that I never thought would happen in my lifetime. Something I've only had one season a year previously, which was a couple of score in 73, 4 where they beat Varshash of Budapest and then lost a sporting. And to be honest, even at half time yesterday, I didn't really think it was going to happen. I was sort of looking at the table. Hang on. Something in Europa League that can't, can't happen because it's been odd, you know, this, this been. This has been the best season by promoted side since Ipswich in 2000. 2001. They finished fifth. Now Sunderland finished seventh in 2001. They also finished seventh in 2000. And certainly that 99, 2000 season felt a lot more impressive than this season, I think because they started the season so well because they were scoring hundreds of goals. Kevin Phillips obviously won the European golden boot. It does feel slightly as though they've snuck in, but equally I think they got four points fewer this season than they did in 99, 2000, but they've kept going. They were really, really good at Everton last week and seemingly. I've only seen the highlights but seemingly physically intimidated Chelsea in the way they physically intimidated Everton. So they need more investment. There's a danger that the strain of Europe makes a season of relegation campaign. But if they put in another 120 million, we could the Europa League semi finals featuring Sunderland, Bournemouth and Crystal palace, which feels like it should be a championship player from about 15 years ago.

[Barney Ronay]

You're right.

[Phil McNulty]

My other Macam, Jonathan mate. He has already booked his hotel room in Frankfurt for next season's Europa League final.

[Jonathan Wilson]

That's literally on my to do list today. I mean, I'll probably be covering it anyway, but, you know, nice to get it sorted.

[Phil McNulty]

Yeah, I'll bunk up with you, Wilson,

[Jonathan Wilson]

if you don't, you will not.

[Barry Glendenning]

Gary says Chelsea know Europe equals league title next season. It'd be interesting. Alonso is a fascinating appointment, Barney, isn't it?

[Barney Ronay]

Yeah, it'd be very interesting to see how. How he gets on. The problems at Real Madrid are kind of well documented. I like the story of Alonso giving really detailed video briefings to the Madrid team and the Madrid superstar players doing theatrical snoring noises while this was going and him Having to stop. Stop the briefing and say, I didn't realize I was at a kindergarten. Now I don't know if he'll. And company he'll find similar problems at Chelsea. I don't know if that's exactly the problem of the Chelsea squad. It's quite a lot of young players, isn't it? I mean, the problem was a lack of experience, maybe. So maybe they're really ready to buy into someone who is a really. A systems manager. He's clearly very smart. It seems an odd. I can understand why he would take the job. It's a really good. See for all the kind of idiocy of the way Chelsea have been run, it's an amazing opportunity and. And there is real talent there, so maybe it could work. I agreed that not having European football be really good for them. They didn't want to play in that Conference League and the project is a real low. It's a good moment to go in there in some ways. Although there's a World cup in the middle of his summer of rebuilding and trying to get his message across, it will be fascinating to see. See how he goes. He's making Chelsea feel a bit more likable, I think, which is strange and I don't know how to process it.

[Barry Glendenning]

Yeah, no, no, it's a very good point. Barry, any strong thoughts on the remaining games or the. The teams involved on them? Because we've done quite a bit on, you know, Bournemouth qualifying for Europe already. Manchester United we've talked about a lot this season. Who won at Brighton and. Well, the Arsenal palace game.

[Phil McNulty]

Yeah, Yeah. I feel under pressure to have really strong thoughts about them now and I. I don't. Is the honest answer. Yeah, the Arsenal palace game, that must have been a weird game to be at. I know loads of Arsenal fans were. All the ones who weren't able to go to the game were all up in the Holloway Road convening at the stadium afterwards. I was in going into Talksport Towers yesterday. I've never seen so many Arsenal shirts. I've never let every third person seem to be wearing an Arsenal shirt. I have noticed some of their fans have moved on from celebration to score settling. Yeah, a lot. A lot of shots fired from the cannons, so. And I presume, you know, I guess they're entitled to do that.

[Barry Glendenning]

Yeah. Verminek says Raya and Kepa in outfield shirts and gloves for a trophy lift. That happened about an hour after the final whistle. Raya wasn't even in the squad. Should Arsenal be stripped of the Title or just have points deducted for next season? And I just on North London forever, I was like, is this a total blind spot for me? Have they been singing this for like 50 years? Is this like you'll never walk alone? And then I realized it was, I looked it up. It was only released in 2022. But yeah, I quite like it as an anthem. You know, I can see how it works for fans. It's got all the things you need. I think it makes you emotional. That was interesting for me. If no one else Christian nor got started. Barry, he was taken off but he was hooked at halftime. But you know, nice to see him out there. So fulham beat Newcastle 2 nil and Bernie and Wolves both get relegated. And they drew one apiece. Yes.

[Barney Ronay]

Barney, is it worth just noting that Arsenal won the League by seven points and won their last five games? Which is interesting.

[Barry Glendenning]

Yes.

[Barney Ronay]

I mean well after the City game,

[Barry Glendenning]

wasn't it after that City defeat.

[Barney Ronay]

Yeah, the bottling and the, you know, it's not done. And the idea that you were going to become an eternal meme of failure and it's not what happened. It always seemed an odd thing that they were simultaneously being accused of extreme pragmatism and of being bottlers as well and fragile. So either they're either too rigid, formalized and robotic or they're too brittle. It never quite added up. I feel like you can only be one of those things. But yeah, they won the League by seven points. It's pretty good.

[Phil McNulty]

Do we expect Arsenal to play the same kind of football next season? I mean, I, I, I don't like watching Arsenal matches. I find them incredibly tedious watch most of the time. I mean the last game, I think I can remember them being like not knocking my blowing my socks off or anything. But they beat Leeds 3 nil at Elland Road and it was like, oh, that, that was good. But apart from that, it quite difficult. Watch for me as someone who, who doesn't care whether Arsenal win the League or not, I wanted them to bottle it because it would have been funny and they didn't. So grand. But will they play the same kind of football next season, do you reckon?

[Barney Ronay]

Well, I was gonna say I think there's a legitimate point about the way that the game is broken down. I think the thing that really exacerbated this feeling that they're somehow this sort of nihilistic team was the taking time out of set pieces. That that stuff is really infuriating. I think it really affected their own football. I think they Took the rhythm out of their own game. It's very hard to stop and start like that. And that seemed like a real excessive thing and I think it really exacerbated the feel. They're incredibly a boring team or whatever it is, but they still scored a lot of goals and won a lot of games. I don't really buy it. I do. They have some brilliant players, I think probably winning a First League title. I don't see why they would change the way they play when they've won the league by seven points and they're in the Champions League final. They were agonizing over the fact that we don't find them free flowing enough like we, I think that they'll carry on trying to win and that's how Michel Arteta sees it. But I, I don't agree that they've been boring and hard to watch. I think a lot, a lot of the games have been tight, but it's given us a very interesting dramatic arc and maybe, yeah, maybe they'll relax a bit and the players will feel able to, to play a bit more in what you would call a kind of improvisational, creative way because they do have some incredible talent in the team.

[Jonathan Wilson]

Well, I think there's two related points here. So one is I wonder if this is the way you have to play in modern football if you want to have a proper run of both the Premier League and the Champions League. And don't forget Arsenal's budget is only the fourth highest in the Premier League. And what I think they've done is they've gone for depth of squad rather than necessarily having lots of great individuals. So as an example, maybe rather than signing Madueke and Jakubes, they could have signed Alexander Isak last summer. Now that I think would have made them better to watch. It would have meant they scored more goals assuming Isak had actually come in with, had a pre season and not got injured. And one of the reasons why they haven't been great to watch is that the centre forward, to be honest, isn't really that good. But Arteta's understanding of just how demanding the Premier League is means that he felt the depth was more important. And you have to say that's been vindicated. It may be that if they bring in an improvement for Gjokovic, they suddenly look a lot sharper and brighter next season.

[Barry Glendenning]

What will be interesting is, is who will compete with them. I know at the start of the season a lot of people thought Liverpool would run away with it this season. They didn't so maybe Arsenal won't be as good next year, but you know, a lot of their competitors are in flux, so it'll be interesting to see if they run away with the Premier League by March next year. Anyway, that'll do for Part two. Part three we'll talk about the England squad, and we're all furious about it.

[Acast Announcer]

Acast Powers the World's Best Podcasts Here's a show that we recommend if you've ever dreamed of quitting your job to take your side hustle full time, listen up. This is Nikayla Matthews Akome, host of Side Hustle Pro, a podcast that helps you build and grow from passion project to profitable business. Every week you'll hear from guests just like you who wanted to start a business on the side. If you can't run a side Hustle, you can't run a business. They share real tips and so I started connecting with all these people on LinkedIn and I saw Target supplier diversity was having office hours. Real advice. Procrastination is the easiest form of resistance and the actual strategies they use to turn their side hustle into their main hustle. Getting back in touch with your tangible cash cash and sitting down and learning to give your money a job like it changes something. Check outside Hustle Pro every week on your favorite podcast app and YouTube.

[Jonathan Wilson]

Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcast everywhere acast.com this summer.

[Acast Announcer]

Don't squeeze in. Spread out. Find homes big enough for your whole guest list on vrbo. That's vacation rentals done right. Book your stay now.

[Aura Announcer]

Most people don't realize how much of their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the Internet, then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers. It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where Aura comes in. Aura actively removes your data from broker sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark web. But Aura goes beyond data protection. With one app, you get a vpn, antivirus, password manager, spam, call protection, dark web monitoring, and even up to $5 million in identity theft insurance. All backed by 24. 7 US based fraud support. Other companies might sell just credit monitoring or just a vpn. Aura gives you all of it together at the same price. Competitors charge for just one service Start your free trial today at aura.com safety Protect yourself now at aura.com safety.

[Barry Glendenning]

Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly. So Thomas Tuchel announced his England squad. Well, Harry Maguire announced part of it by saying he was sad. And then Harry Maguire's family all said that they were sad that he wasn't in. The headlines are always going to be about the emissions, I guess. Wilson Foden, Palmer, Gibbs White. Training Alexander, Arnold Maguire, Jared Bowen, Lewis Hall. Some surprising inclusions, I guess. Ivan Tony, Gerald Quanture, Jed Spence. But what do you make of it as a squad?

[Jonathan Wilson]

That's fine. And what I'm encouraged by is that Tuchel hasn't fallen into the trap that even Southgate fell into by the end of just picking the famous blokes. England's big problem the last year is I know they got to the final but they didn't play well. They were very fortunate to get to the final was that everybody was trying to play in that number 10 space. You had Foden coming in off the left, you had Saka coming in off the right. You had Harry Kane dropping deep. You had Detlen Rice pushing forward, you had Bellingham who was actually playing there. He had Cole Palmer coming off the bench doing the same thing. England had got loads of those players who you want to end up in that space. And one of the, I mean, I know Kane had the back injury which obviously didn't help, but one of the reasons he was less effective than we'd like him to be at the Euros was he didn't have people running beyond him. Well, Tuchel has picked players who run beyond him and they might not be as glamorous as Foden and Palmer. Foden Palmer haven't played well this season. If you've decided we can only have three or four, that type of player, well, don't take six, maybe make the hard call.

[Jacob Steinberg]

Trent.

[Jonathan Wilson]

Alexander Arnold is obviously a great footballer, though he's quite an unusual right back and he's not just a plug it in play player. So you either got to say he's our starting right back, everybody else has to be accommodated around him, or you say, actually we've got other right backs. Rhys James is just as good in his own way and actually he makes it easy for everybody else and then there is no place for Alexander Arnold, Harry Maguire, as Barney said in this column, he's supposed to be this sort of of great example of sort of lionhearted Englishmen. Well, Lionheart Englishmen don't go sort of, they say don't get their mothers completing on social media. You know, this is exactly the reason why he shouldn't be in the squad because he's not going to be first choice. You don't want him, as Barney said, you don't want him moping around the tennis courts between games. So he's not so good. You can, you can accommodate that. So leave him out.

[Phil McNulty]

It's all paddle these days though, isn't it? No one's playing tennis anymore.

[Barry Glendenning]

That's a good point.

[Barney Ronay]

It was incredibly rude to Dan Byrne. Example is the player he's referring to as. I mean Dan Burn played in essentially the same thing. Tuchel doesn't want to play this. Maguire is always the slowest person on the pitch and. And he steps backwards. He drags the rest of the defensive line back with him. I know football isn't the game of sprinting, but that's really important. That space in the field is really important and he obviously doesn't want to do that. So you, you can only really choose one of Maguire. Danburn and Danburn played in the qualifiers. So pick him. It was a really interesting case study in the Unreliable Narrator. Like I'm the level of delusion in that. It was, it was a. It wasn't just a narrow call that went the wrong way. It was a travesty. Not to pick Harry Maguire in his own mind was really surprising. Can I say on. On Wilson's point about Harry Kane, I've got this dream of England. This won't happen because there's not time and no one wants to do it. But the problem has been Harry Kane not playing. He seems to always be the furthest forward player in England teams at tournaments. So you get to see him trying to sprint beyond the last defender, which is obviously a terrible idea. And he doesn't play like that for Bayern. And I would love to play him as the number 10 with Ollie Watkins ahead of him so that you have a totally different dynamic. Kane effectively plays a number 10 for Bayern because the wide players do run on ahead and they're comfortable coming inside. Watkins is really good form. He's really quick. He can score. He scored in a tournament semi final. He'll be feed feeling good. Kane is England's best number 10. I don't think Jude Bellingham will play there. But is he a number 10? I don't know. I've never really seen him play well as a number 10. I don't really know what his position is.

[Barry Glendenning]

Kane does play as a nine who drops deep, doesn't he? Like he doesn't play as a 10.

[Barney Ronay]

He'll be in the same space as whoever is playing at number 10 when that happens. Somehow it seems to work okay with Musiala, but Musiala runs beyond him. We'll have the same sort of log jam and it'll be Kane trying to sprint beyond the center backs. And everyone will complain about him being exhausted and injured, but it's just not his game. And I'd just like to see a tournament where that doesn't happen and there's someone quick there. That would be really nice. But there's not time to do this. Normal to do it. And. And it won't happen.

[Jonathan Wilson]

But that's why there's the argument for picking Morgan Rogers ahead of Bellingham. Right. Because Morgan Rogers more naturally would make that run beyond him. And it worked really well in the qualifiers.

[Barney Ronay]

Yeah, he makes really good runs. He. And he makes endless runs that way.

[Barry Glendenning]

Tuchel might pick Rogers, I think. I mean, he did in the qualifiers. I think he might do it. Steve says. Can we get Barry's thoughts on Harry Kane once again going missing in a big game? He scored a hat trick in the German cup final against Stuttgart. Barry, you are obviously furious about the squad. Do you fear it?

[Phil McNulty]

I think it's a really good squad. If I was to form at the mouse about any exclusions or emissions, I. I think Adam Orton's a terrific football player. I'd have him in. And apart from that, really, I think things is a really good squad. I'm worried. I'm officially worried, Max.

[Barry Glendenning]

Okay, well, it's all right. I'm sure there'll be a. I'm sure there'll be a night on our six weeks together where you don't have to be worried anym more. And I can stare wistfully into the distance. Another depressing but heroic defeat. Well done to Hull, who beat Middlesbrough in the Premier League. We've got an EFL pod tomorrow. We'll go big on that. Of course. You were there, Wilson. Did you have a nice time?

[Jonathan Wilson]

I had a nice time. It was a terrible game and it was far too hot. But I was glad it didn't go to extra time and I'm glad that it didn't go to the extra, extra time of potential whole court cases saying that Middlesbrough didn't deserve to be there. But I was certainly, certainly glad it was over. Put it that way.

[Barry Glendenning]

Any Questions for the FL pod or anything else? Football weekly@the guardian.com Barry, you on the minute by minute for the Scottish Cup Final. Celtic being done firmly.

[Phil McNulty]

Yeah, another sign we we're not allowed nice things everyone. I think apart from Celtic fans wanted done firmly to win in the same way that they wanted Harts to win the title. Neil Lenin, obviously the manager of Dunfermline from the championship, coming up against his old pal and mentor Martin o' Neill and Don Firmland. I think the occasion got to them. They didn't turn up till the second half and by then it was too late. They were two nil down at halftime. Celtic scored three really nice goals. Kichi and Atra's goal is absolutely terrific. Just this little soft shoe shuffle jinking past three different players before sticking the ball today. I didn't think he had it in his locker, but he did. I know they're only done Firmland players, but you can only jinx past what's in front of you and I look, Celtic have had this season of total turmoil and still come out at the end of it winning the double. I don't know what that says about Scottish fitback, but we need to get

[Barry Glendenning]

Ewan back on A couple of emails to finish. Dr. Matthew Clark writes. Hello gents. Thank you for your excellent football podcast and all of the niche knowledge I glean and recycle at the pub with mates. I happen to run a vasectomy service in Bristol and I get 20 minutes in an entirely unique position to speak with each patient. When all is laid bare in such circumstances, I find the conversation surprisingly candid. We often veer towards football. As an Arsenal fan, I confess this may happen more recently. You will be pleased to hear that in these moments I recommend to anyone listening how brilliant your podcast is. And oddly enough, they appear to listen to me. If you ever want a Q and A on vasectomy on your show, please do give me a shout. Keep up the great work. Dr. Matthew Clark, BSc, BMBs, MRCS, MRCGP, SSM, VAS, which may be vasectomy at the end of it. I'm not sure. Yes, Barney.

[Barney Ronay]

Why is vasectomy such a theme of the pod? I feel like people are trying to stop the pod from reproducing. Interesting.

[Barry Glendenning]

Well, I It happened organically that somebody wrote in to say that they were listening to us while I had a vasectomy and then others also chimed in to say they were also that also happened to them. It was the same time as lots of people were having car crashes while listening and their car would be a write off and Football Weekly would continue to play.

[Barney Ronay]

These people who had not planned to have a vasectomy when they started listening to the pod. By the end of it, they're in the finish under the knife.

[Barry Glendenning]

Humanity cannot continue. And this is, this is all we can do.

[Phil McNulty]

I. I think getting his vasectomy is a very arrogant procedure. You know, I'm having so much sex that I need to go and get a procedure done just to stop me conceiving more children. You know, just. Just do it the natural way. Like I do do abstinence. It works.

[Barry Glendenning]

I mean, but I would say if you did have two young children, you might think even who was. Even if you just tripped over by accident, you'd be like, I don't want. I don't want the chances. We finished with an email from Paul with the subject matter. I may have eaten Wilson's mum. Good day to you. Back to Barry, whoever lines the panel today. I'm writing perhaps a bit late, but I feel that I must given the frequency of deja vu I. I've been experiencing from the pod. A few weeks ago I traveled from Michigan, where I lived to England to walk the UK coast to coast trail. I flew into Manchester and swiftly boarded a train up to St. Bees leaving Manchester Piccadilly. Only minutes into my journey I saw out of my right sided window a view of the Etihad stadium. And of course my mind wound back to a recent controversy surrounding Mr. Barney Ronnie. I toggled my way back to the conversation of the episode which I had listened to on the plane that morning, included that his claims to be incorrect. Though there were rear facing seats in the car I was in. This was on which side the Etihad was on when you were on the train, Barney. But we don't have time for you to defend yourself. Days pass.

[Barney Ronay]

Yeah, it's on the right side. It's on the right hand side.

[Jonathan Wilson]

It's on the right. Is here north. Absolutely categoried 100.

[Barry Glendenning]

Okay.

[Jonathan Wilson]

Days on the left if you're heading south.

[Barney Ronay]

No, no, but the thing is I may be facing backwards in my seat. Like, you know, that's the point.

[Barry Glendenning]

You can't get angry with the audience. Days passed and I completed my walk in the north. Returned to Manchester for my return. That evening I walked through central Manchester listening to the latest episode where Jonathan and Wilson recounted the tales of him spreading his parents ashes. He told of a bench on the horse water in the Lake District where he scattered his.

[Jonathan Wilson]

On water sales water. Oh.

[Barry Glendenning]

Oh dear. Well that, that. That means Paul definitely, hasn't he. He carries on to say where he scattered his mother's ashes. Only for them to later blow back onto a picnicking family. I was shocked again to be experiencing a POD story in some bend of time. It so happens that I'd walked the entire length of horse water days before listening to this and had stopped on a bench to eat an orange and a can of church tuna.

[Jonathan Wilson]

Well, also, it was in 2019, so, okay. Unless she'd lingered.

[Barry Glendenning]

Yeah, perhaps in the flex of dormant dust that had blown onto my lunch, I, too, consumed a portion of Wilson's mother. It's unclear to me, but I can't help feel that I may have had prophetic and prescient relationship to the pod, and that all anecdotes, past and future, have stirred their way into my consciousness, and I neither remember nor forget them. All aside, I want to thank you for your work. You're doing the POD and your individual pieces. One of these days, I'll heed the appeal to defense, spend press freedom. Yes. Donate. All the best, Paul. I'm getting married in a few months. Oh, here we go. If Barry could offer some well wishes to my fiance, Sutton and me, it would make our day. So, just to confirm, Paul did not sit on a bench near where you scattered your mother's ashes. It wasn't horse water. It was Earl's water. So Paul is okay. So, okay, we can discount this, which is a shame, but I've read the email now, Barry. It's Paul and Sutton. They're getting married.

[Phil McNulty]

Well, I, I wish Paul and Sutton the very best of. Look, I, I'm still overwhelmed by the subject of his email. I may have eaten Wilson's mom. I, I, I really don't know what to say beyond that.

[Barry Glendenning]

But that's okay.

[Phil McNulty]

Very good luck to to Paul.

[Barry Glendenning]

And so, yeah, good luck to both of you. And that will do for today. Thanks, everybody. Thank you, Barry.

[Phil McNulty]

Thank you.

[Barry Glendenning]

Thanks, Barney.

[Barney Ronay]

Cheers, everyone.

[Barry Glendenning]

Thank you, Wilson.

[Jonathan Wilson]

Cheers. Thank you.

[Barry Glendenning]

Football Weekly is produced by Silas Great. Our executive producer is Joel Grove. Back tomorrow. This is the Guardian.